Trial begins in shooting death of girl

April 01, 2003|By Jeff Coen, Tribune staff reporter.

A dispute over missing drugs led 31-year-old Michael Barnes to fire an assault rifle into a house in the Englewood neighborhood in July 2000, prosecutors said Monday, a shooting that took the life of a 12-year-old girl who had been sleeping in the home.

Assistant State's Atty. David Kelly told jurors hearing Barnes' murder trial that the defendant sprayed the duplex with "military-type rounds" that ripped through several rooms. Barnes and his cousin, Terrell Barnes, 23, who had earlier tried to enter the home in the 5900 block of South Honore Street, are on trial for the slaying of Earle Elementary School 6th-grader Tsarina Powell.

Kelly told the panel they would hear how Tsarina heard the shots being fired and tried to get to the front of the house where her sister was sleeping.

"And you'll hear how she didn't make it, how she fell in that house and died," he said.

The fate of Michael Barnes is to be weighed by the jury, while Judge James Linn considers the evidence against Terrell Barnes in a simultaneous bench trial.

Defense attorney Mark Solock called the child's death a "horrible, horrible incident" but urged jurors to look beyond it and consider the evidence in the case.

Solock said key testimony will come from a third man charged in the case, Derrick Martin, 22, who has agreed to testify against his co-defendants in a bid for leniency.

Evidence in the case will point to Martin, "who will say anything to save his own skin," the attorney said.